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Questions: Answer the following questions in your notebooks. Note terms in bold/italic.
By the 1100s, Europe was experiencing dynamic changes. No longer were people preoccupied with just the daily struggle to survive. Improvements in agriculture were creating a steadier food supply. The revival of trade and town life were signs of increased prosperity. Within those towns, a growing middle class was growing in wealth. In time, towns contributed a vital spark that touched off the cultural flowering of the high Middle Ages.
Medieval Universities. As economic and political conditions improved, the need for education expanded. The Church wanted a better educated clergy. Kings needed educated men to serve in their growing government bureaucracies. Town life itself created new needs for education. The sons of the wealthy middle class could hope to rise in the Church, in government, and in professions. As the town population grew, so did the need for trained bankers, lawyers, doctors, and men of business. Schools were founded to prepare these young men for a new future.
By the 1100s, schools had sprung up around the great cathedrals built in the larger towns and cities. At first, these cathedral schools educated just the clergy. Soon they provided an education for the sons of the middle class. Some of the cathedral schools developed into the first universities, where students could specialize in law, medicine, the liberal arts, or theology. The city of Bologna in Italy boasted Europe's earliest university, and it developed a specialty in law. The leading university for the study of theology was the University of Paris, and in England, Oxford and Cambridge universities were founded, England's oldest.
Some universities, such as Oxford and Cambridge, were run by their teachers. At the University of Bologna, however, the students hired and paid the professors. Professors could be dismissed for being late, unprepared, or just plain boring! Women were not allowed to attend the universities. This exclusion seriously affected their lives. Without a university education, they could not enter the professions open to men.
The scarcity of books was a major roadblock to education and the advancement of learning in the High Middle Ages. Since printing was not introduced into Europe until the 1400s, most teaching was done by reading orally from a single book controlled by the teacher. Handwritten books were too expensive to be owned by many students. It is estimated that an ordinary volume would be worth hundreds of dollars in today's money.
Medieval Literature. While Latin was the language of churchmen and university scholars, new writings began to appear in the vernacular, or everyday language of ordinary people. This literature captured the spirit of the age, and included epic poems about feudal warriors, dramas based on religious and moral themes, and tales about everyday life, many of which began as spoken literature, handed down by oral tradition.
In France, the chansons de geste, or "songs of heroic deeds" told tales of feudal heroism. The most famous of these was the Song of Roland, which praised the heroics of Charlemagne's bravest knight, Roland, who died fighting Muslim invaders from Spain. Spain, too, produced a great medieval epic poem, the Poem of the Cid. Again, this was a story of a Christian hero who battled with Muslim invaders.
Not all stories were of heroic deeds. In the age of chivalry, the idea of romantic love or "courtly love" played as crucial a role in the epics as bravery. Stories of romance were often presented as sung poems by wandering troubadours--poet musicians who traveled from town to town singing songs of love and adventure. Fables, too, became a popular literary form. In these stories that taught a lesson, animals take on human qualities. The Church used drama as a means of teaching lessons of faith and morality. Plays based on stores from the Bible were called mystery plays; dramas based on the lives of saints and other religious events were called miracle plays; and stories that focused on the struggled between good and evil were called morality plays.
Probably the two greatest works of high medieval literature are the Divine Comedy, written in the 1200s by the Italian poet Dante, and The Canterbury Tales, written in England in the 1300s by Geoffrey Chaucer. Both poems tell the story of a religious journey. In Divine Comedy, it is the journey of the soul through hell, purgatory, and finally heaven. The quest of the individual for salvation is the great theme of the poem. In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, a more secular, or worldly, spirit is in evidence. The "religious" journey is a mere excuse for bringing together a collection of medieval "types." An opportunity to examine human character seems to be Chaucer's purpose, rather than a serious religious quest.
The remarkable range and variety of this new literature, written in the vernacular, testifies to the increasing levels of education in the High Middle Ages and to an increasing interest in exploring and communicating everyday life as lived in the world.
“New” Learning. Universities
received a further boost from an explosion of knowledge that reached Europe in
the High Middle Ages. Many of the "new" ideas had originated in
ancient Greece but had been lost to Western Europeans after the fall of Rome.
Scholasticism. By the 1100s, these new
translations were seeping into Western Europe. There they set off a revolution
in the world of learning. The writings of the ancient Greeks, especially the
rediscovery of Aristotle, posed a challenge to Christian scholars.
Aristotle taught that people should use reason to discover basic truths.
Christians, however, accepted many ideas on faith. They believed that the Church
was the final authority on all questions. How could they use the logic of
Aristotle without undermining their Christian faith? Christian scholars, known
as scholastic theologians, tried to resolve the conflict between
faith and reason. Their method, known as scholasticism, used
reason to support Christian beliefs.
Perhaps the greatest of these thinkers was St. Thomas Aquinas. In a monumental work, Summa Theologica, Aquinas examined all Christian teachings in the light of reason. Faith and reason, he concluded, existed in harmony. Both led to the same truth: that God ruled over an orderly universe. He thus brought together Christian faith and classical Greek philosophy.
Science. In the field of science, the
scholars of the Middle Ages were followers of the early Greeks, Aristotle,
Galen, and Ptolemy. Roger Bacon, one of the most famous of the
medieval scientists, used observation and experimentation in chemistry. Because
of his early, significant contribution to the scientific method of study, Bacon
is now considered an important founder of experimental science.
In spite of the growing emphasis on observation and interpretation, however, medieval scientists often returned to magic and alchemy. Through alchemy, an early form of chemistry, scientists tried to change base metals into gold. Such attempts were useless, and delayed the development of the science of chemistry.
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Questions: Answer
the following questions.
The medieval cathedral--perhaps, the greatest artistic creation of the
Middle Ages--grew out of a particular cultural setting, and its development and
special features were outgrowths of the era that gave it birth. The cathedral
takes on added meaning once its economic and social, as well as its religious
context is understood. The
cathedral becomes an expression of its age.
It goes without saying that the primary reason for the building of great cathedrals in the High Middle Ages was to express the deep religious piety of the period, otherwise, the enormous resources needed to build these great churches would have been used in other ways. The enthusiasm for cathedral building began around 1100, reached its height at the end of the 1200s, and reflected profound social and economic changes.
The history of cathedral construction is directly related to the revival of cities and trade and to the birth of a middle class. In the early Middle Ages, urban life diminished. Little by little, merchants disappeared and city life died. Technical knowledge that had survived from the ancient period, such as the secret of stonecutting, fell into disuse, and it took centuries to discover a satisfactory new system.
Then, beginning in the tenth century, a relative peace was established after centuries of decline and chaos. Soon, profit-seeking adventurers began transporting goods from one corner of Europe to the other, reestablishing commerce. These men began to install themselves at important crossroads, and their activity helped towns and cities to revive. There was a close relationship between the commercial strength of the cities and cathedral construction, and the growing wealth of the middle class merchants of these cities played a decisive role in the cathedral movement. The presence of a magnificent cathedral attested to the importance of your city and acted as an economic magnet, attracting tourists and trade. The cathedral was a great opportunity to advertise your business. It is interesting to note that the merchant and craft guilds that helped to finance the cathedral obtained the best possible placement for their windows. They are installed along the side aisles nearest the worshipers, while windows donated by bishops and lords were much less prominently displayed. At Chartres Cathedral, the cloth merchant, the stonecutter, the wheelwright, and the carpenter each had himself depicted in a medallion, donated by his guild, placed in the lower part of the window, as close as possible to future clients.
Inspired by a deep local patriotism, merchants wanted to impress strangers with the magnificence of their cities through their cathedrals. The enthusiasm of the merchant class included a desire to break records, and cathedral vaults rose higher and higher. In 1163, the vault of Notre-Dame in Paris rose 115 feet from the floor. Chartres surpassed Paris in 1194, reaching 120 feet, in 1212 Reims Cathedral shot up to 124 feet, and in 1221, Amiens soared to 139 feet. This drive to break records reached its climax in 1247 at Beauvais. The plan to raise the vault to 157 feet resulted in a catastrophic collapse in 1284.
An impressive array of worldly activities went on inside these medieval churches. People slept, ate, talked openly, and brought animals inside. Circulation was much freer than now because there were no pews. City representatives met in the cathedral to discuss city business, often the cathedral was considered to be the city hall. The role of the middle class merchants in financing the city cathedral made it not unusual for them to hold their guild meetings there.
Numerous feast days increased the contact between God and medieval people, and the people of the Middle Ages with each other. The Church masterfully organized ceremonies and processions, concentrating their efforts on activities in the cathedrals. On high holy days, the congregations from surrounding parishes attended the services in the cathedral, so medieval cathedrals had to be sufficiently large to accommodate crowds. Faced with an influx of the faithful, authorities were constantly pressed to enlarge their cathedrals. Under the cathedral vaults, people of all social conditions met side by side. The middle class merchant encountered the peasant as well as the bishop, the nobleman, and even the king. No where is this more evident than among the most famous group of “literary tourists”—the pilgrims of The Canterbury Tales.
From the middle of the twelfth century, going to the Holy Land was no longer as popular as it had been earlier, and it was no longer necessary to go on a crusade to atone for sins. The Church began to grant indulgences—forgiveness for sins—to those who helped to build cathedrals and to those who visited the sites as pilgrims. Thus, the “cathedral crusade” idea took form. Ambitious pilgrims might travel to Rome to visit the shrines of St. Peter and St. Paul. Others would travel several different circuits of cathedrals through France and Spain, ending at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostella. English pilgrims, like the characters in Canterbury Tales, sought forgiveness for sin—and probably adventure and excitement—traveling to Canterbury Cathedral to visit the shrine of St. Thomas Becket.
Geoffrey Chaucer wrote his great masterpiece at the end of the 1300s, but by this time, passionate interest in cathedral building was on the decline, and for all practical purposes was ending with the outbreak of the Hundred Years’ War in 1337. Workshops closed and most work ceased. The great age of cathedral building in Western Europe was over.
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Questions. Answer the following questions in your notebooks.
Origins. The Holy Land of Palestine, where Jesus lived, had been part of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire until it came under the rule of Muslims in the seventh century. The city of Jerusalem there is sacred to both Muslims and Christians, so the holy places were preserved and Christian pilgrims were not stopped from visiting them.
In the eleventh century the situation changed when Muslim Turks overran the area. They prevented Christians from visiting the Holy Land. They also threatened the capital city of Constantinople. In 1095, the Byzantine emperor Alexius I appealed to Pope Urban II for European assistance against the Turks. In response, the Pope called a Church Council at Clermont, France. Speaking with great passion, he urged the nobles of Europe to liberate the Holy Land from Turkish control. “Christ himself is your leader. Wear his cross as your badge. If you are killed your sins will be pardoned” said Urban. The nobles responded with the shout, “Deus le volt!” (God wills it!) The “holy wars” known as the Crusades were set in motion.
Peasant Crusaders. Before the army of European knights could set off, a horde of humble peasants and craftsmen set off at once for Constantinople, unorganized and unprepared, on the so-called People’s Crusade. They were short of food and weapons and le not by a soldier but by a charismatic preacher known as Peter the Hermit. They looted and burned their way across much of eastern Europe, killing thousands of Jews along the way. Many died along the way; those who reached the Holy Land were crushed by the Turks in 1096.
The First Crusade. While the peasants were meeting with disaster, the feudal lords organized an army. This “First Crusade” set off in 1096. By 1099, they had taken Jerusalem from the Turks and set up the Christian states, the Crusader States in Palestine. These victories were only temporary, however. The Turks were determined to regain the lands they lost. Later Crusades were not successful in either expanding or holding on to the lands won by the First Crusade. By 1291, all lands captured by the Christians were once again in the hands of the Turks.
Results of the Crusades. The Crusades had a significant transforming effect on European society.
1. The Church. Ultimately, the Crusades served to weaken the authority of the Church. The Church had first inspired the Crusading armies. Subsequent calls for additional Crusades were questioned by Europeans. Many Christians came to feel that the Popes were using religious enthusiasm to increase the power of the Church. As criticisms grew, the standing of the Church declined.
2. Feudalism. The Crusades also contributed to the decline of feudalism. Many noblemen lost fortunes paying for arms and transportation. Many nobles also lost their lives. Kings found it easier to reassert control as lords declined in economic power and in number.
3. Revival of Trade. The Crusades played a key role in reviving trade in Western Europe. The Crusades helped to stimulate demand for eastern goods, reviving east-west trade that had stagnated since the fall of the western Roman Empire. Growth of trade led to a revival of cities and towns. This in turn led to a decline in the manorial system of economics. Revived trade meant that manors no longer had to be self-sufficient.
4. Changes to social organization. Serfdom began to disappear in Western Europe. Some serfs won their personal freedom as a reward from the Church for going on a Crusade. Many serfs fled from the manor because there now was an alternative: the lure of city life. After remaining in a town for a year and a day, a serf could not be forced to return to the manor by a lord. “City air makes a man free,” went a medieval proverb. It was also a place were one could develop new skills and be rewarded for hard work. Towns also brought about the rise of a new class—the middle class. Made up of merchants, craftsmen, and their families, they did not fit into the traditional society of the Middle Ages. They neither “fought” like the lords and knights, nor “prayed” like the clergy, or “worked the land” like the peasant serfs. They made their own lives and places in the world through their own efforts. They were free of obligations to the lords. They will be the dynamic engines of change whose energies and creativity will give rise to the modern western world.
5. Political changes. As the power of lords declined, the power of kings was on the rise, along with the formation of nation-states in Europe. Allying themselves with the growing cities and the middle class (who wanted protection from the lords), kings will reassert their power in the last centuries of the Middle Ages.
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